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Topic: Date Stone - Shirley Avenue (Read 2391 times)

This image of a date stone from a garden on Shirley Avenue has been passed on by Marple Local Hostory Society. Can any of you history buffs out there shed any light on where this might be from? Or the meaning of the upside-down heart symbol?

The fields on which Shirley Avenue was built were all owned by the Bradshaw Isherwoods and it is obviously close to the sites of Norbury Smithy and Peace Farm, so it is probably something to do with these but it would be nice to establish a real link.

Sir Edward Stanley, having no male heirs, sold the manors of Wibersleigh and Marple in the early 1600's.The ownerships of these manors over the next 150 years is unknown but I have a note from somewhere that one of the landowners was a George Elliot. What he owned and when is not known.

Shirley Avenue was named after Martha Rowbatham 1822 - 1893, who married Thomas Shirley in 1842. The 1881 census shows her aged 59, and innkeeper and farmer with 14 acres. The Inn was the Jolly Sailor.

Brindley Avenue was built before Shirley Avenue because my family lived there for a short while until Shirley Avenue was finished. My grandparents had 10 children and the council eventually gave them 2 adjoining semis on Shirley Avenue so that they had 6 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. When my father married my mother after 8 of the other children had grown up and flown the nest they moved into one of the semis (Council House) in which I grew up. I eventually got married and moved out but moved back in with my father in the 80's and bought the house from the council under Maggie's "Right to Buy" and I have lived in the house ever since. My own family are now growing up in this house that nobody but my family has lived in for 75 years since it was built.